RIL's E-Commerce Push: Will Reliance Retail Be The Next Jio?

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is a Fortune 500 company and the largest private sector corporation in India.

- Saikat Neogi

Reliance's products and services portfolio touches almost all Indians on a daily basis, across economic and social spectrums. The company has evolved from being a textiles and polyester company to an integrated player across energy, materials, retail, entertainment and digital services.

The home-grown crude-to-yarn-to-telecom-to-e-commerce conglomerate, RIL, has purchased the 259-year-old British toy store chain Hamleys from C.Banner International Holdings for Rs 620 crore. This buyout, including a host of other stake purchases or outright acquisitions in the past six months, is the strategy of Mukesh Ambani to push for consumer business, which he feels will contribute nearly as much as to the conglomerate's total earnings as its core energy business by the end of 2028. Globally, too RIL aspires to be among the top 20 companies and along with refining and petrochemicals and new age businesses – Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail.

After establishing Reliance Jio as one of India's leading telecom players, it turned profitable less than a year and a half since its launch, RIL has been chalking out plans for a retail expansion to combine its traditional outlets with an online foray to take on global giants like Amazon and Walmart in India. In fact, Mr Ambani had outlined his plan to shareholders in July last year that he wants to scale up the online retail business by getting onboard the millions of mom-and-pop stores that dominate the Indian retail market. He has also figured out that Indian consumer is all about technology, social media and entertainment and that these will help in scaling up the retail space.

Retail in India